facing donk overbet

[soah]

Stars 2/4 6-max

Donk joins the game.

I had a hand against him where I openraised to $12 from the CO, he called in the BB. Flop was K96 two spades. He checks I bet $16 he calls. Turn is offsuit jack. Check check. River is offsuit jack. He goes all-in for $51. I think a bit and fold. He proudly displays J6o.

A short time later, he limps and everyone else folds. I check in the BB with Q6o. Flop is two low spades and one low diamond. One of them is a six. Check check. Jack of diamonds on the turn. I check, he bets $4 I call. River is queen of diamonds. I check, he goes all-in for $71. I thought I was inducing a river bluff but this wasn't exactly what I had in mind.

To call or not to call? That is my question.

I think, and after about ten seconds he types "zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz" into the chat box. Does this affect your decision at all?

[Chaostracize]

I think villain is really expecting you to fold here. Donk probably thinks you're just trying to make him sweat. I find a call here against this opponent. It's different from the other hand in that you showed real aggression and he played back at you. Here you've shown none and he has no reason to think you have a healthy two pair.

EDIT: Just saw the backdoor flush. I think it's more 50/50 now. Do you feel lucky?

[kongo_totte]

It's not easy, but I fold this. In this situation I think you can profitably use the motto "don't go broke in an unraised pot". If he keep making donk moves like this, you should have his money sooner or later anyway.

[Rickyroodido]

[ QUOTE ]
It's not easy, but I fold this. In this situation I think you can profitably use the motto "don't go broke in an unraised pot". If he keep making donk moves like this, you should have his money sooner or later anyway

[/ QUOTE ]

I think your right about this, however im just curious about the last sentence. Why would he get the donks money later?
a) the donk could get lucky.
b) someone els might take the donks money.

Wouldnt it be EV+ to always put donks to the test in this type of situation, given that they are capable of very bad play.

[kongo_totte]

[ QUOTE ]

a) the donk could get lucky.



[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, they could. As could a good player. I don't see how this is relevant.

[ QUOTE ]


b) someone els might take the donks money.

Wouldnt it be EV+ to always put donks to the test in this type of situation, given that they are capable of very bad play.

[/ QUOTE ]

I wait until a better situation. I don't think a call is horrible. A fold is a marginally better play IMO.

[Garland]

We've already established that his push = monster from the first hand.

Why are you sweating it so much? Fold it. He'll probably "proudly display" his hand again, and you'll get free info.

Garland

[Chaostracize]

I don't believe that's necessarily true. Even donks can try to set up plays later on.

You are ignoring the fact the soah was betting on every street in the first hand and gave NO action the second hand. Villain could be assumed to expect a large call in the first hand, but how could he possibly expect a call in the second one.

The fact that it's a large overbet and he's shown one large overbet as being a very strong hand is a good reason TO call his all in. If soah waits for the nuts to call an all-in he'll be waiting for a very long time. This hand is plenty good enough to call with.

[Garland]

The bottom line for me is, unless the villian has shown the propensity to make overbets with bad/marginal hands, I'm not calling this one.

Even without the first hand, where villian showed a full house, it would be a fold. The first hand just made the fold for the second hand even easier.

My new mantra: "Beware the massive overbet."
They almost always have the nuts.

Garland

[thatpfunk]

I think this is a pretty clear fold. You will get better oppurtunities.

[BigJohn804]

Well, I think calling this guy a donk is a bit of oversimplification based on only two hands of information.

In the first hand the guy is new to the table and someone raises him $8 while he's in the big blind, I see no problem with him making an attempt to defend his blind. The flop comes and he check-calls the $16 bet into a $26 pot (based on post info). That smells weak to me, so with a flush draw on the board it's possible he decides to make a play at the pot and calls the flop bet, backing into a hand on the next two streets. Turn makes his two pair and we're told again that there's a check-check. The fact that Soah checks the turn leads me to believe that he had no part of the board, so I'm deducing he had a hand like AQ, A10 or weaker Ace or medium pocket pair like pocket eights or sevens.

River fills the "donk" up and with a $58 pot there he puts in his remaining $51. There is nothing truly "donk-ish" that I see in this hand's play.

So we get to hand #2. "Donk" makes a massive overbet of $71 into an $18 (based on post info) pot. On this hand I think everyone else has offered pretty sound advice, don't go broke in an unraised pot. Two pair looks good, but he could easily have backed into the flush, hit a set, or based on what he's witnessed he thinks he can push you out of the hand.

[TheWorstPlayer]

[ QUOTE ]
I think this is a pretty clear fold. You are ahead less than 45% of the time here.

[/ QUOTE ]
FYP (FWIW, I don't agree.)

[thatpfunk]

[ QUOTE ]

Quote:
I think this is a pretty clear fold. You are ahead less than 45% of the time here.


FYP (FWIW, I don't agree.)

[/ QUOTE ]

/images/graemlins/confused.gif I'm kind of out of it so maybe I'm missing something obvious. Explain please?

Pot ~$85. It costs Hero $71 to call- 1.2:1? Hero needs to be good ~80% of the time?

Originally I didn't even both with the math because in my experiences the Hero is beat too often, and if he is actually ahead (and villian is that much of a donk and he will now think he can push around Hero), the opportunity will definetly present itself again.

Where am I going wrong?

[TheWorstPlayer]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Quote:
I think this is a pretty clear fold. You are ahead less than 45% of the time here.


FYP (FWIW, I don't agree.)

[/ QUOTE ]

/images/graemlins/confused.gif I'm kind of out of it so maybe I'm missing something obvious. Explain please?

Pot ~$85. It costs Hero $71 to call- 1.2:1? Hero needs to be good ~80% of the time?

Originally I didn't even both with the math because in my experiences the Hero is beat too often, and if he is actually ahead (and villian is that much of a donk and he will now think he can push around Hero), the opportunity will definetly present itself again.

Where am I going wrong?

[/ QUOTE ]
If I bet you even money that I could run a mile in under 6 minutes, how often would you have to be right for taking the bet to be +EV? (Hint: it is less than 80% even though you are getting only 1:1)

[thatpfunk]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Quote:
I think this is a pretty clear fold. You are ahead less than 45% of the time here.


FYP (FWIW, I don't agree.)

[/ QUOTE ]

/images/graemlins/confused.gif I'm kind of out of it so maybe I'm missing something obvious. Explain please?

Pot ~$85. It costs Hero $71 to call- 1.2:1? Hero needs to be good ~80% of the time?

Originally I didn't even both with the math because in my experiences the Hero is beat too often, and if he is actually ahead (and villian is that much of a donk and he will now think he can push around Hero), the opportunity will definetly present itself again.

Where am I going wrong?

[/ QUOTE ]
If I bet you even money that I could run a mile in under 6 minutes, how often would you have to be right for taking the bet to be +EV? (Hint: it is less than 80% even though you are getting only 1:1)

[/ QUOTE ]

/images/graemlins/crazy.gif Less questions, more answers...

I think I was/am thinking backwards.

Anywho, do you really think he is good ~45% of the time? I would guess he is good less than 20%. What do you think Donk is doing this with?

[TheWorstPlayer]

If I bet you even money (comparable to a bet with no money in the pot) and you win once and lose once, then you are even, right? So for it to be +EV, you only have to win more than 50% of the time. With $90 in the pot and $70 to call, you will win $90 when you win and lose $70 when you lose so you get
EV = P*90-(1-P)*70 where P is the probability of winning. If you set EV to zero, you get
0 = 90P+70P-70 => P = 70/160 = 44%

So Hero has to be ahead 45% of the time for the call to be +EV. And I think Hero is ahead that much, probably. It could be a total bluff, a missed draw, or a worse two pair. I think all of those possibilities will add up to 45% here, given the description of the opponent. But I agree that it is probably close.

[soah]

[ QUOTE ]
Well, I think calling this guy a donk is a bit of oversimplification based on only two hands of information.

In the first hand the guy is new to the table and someone raises him $8 while he's in the big blind, I see no problem with him making an attempt to defend his blind. The flop comes and he check-calls the $16 bet into a $26 pot (based on post info). That smells weak to me, so with a flush draw on the board it's possible he decides to make a play at the pot and calls the flop bet, backing into a hand on the next two streets. Turn makes his two pair and we're told again that there's a check-check. The fact that Soah checks the turn leads me to believe that he had no part of the board, so I'm deducing he had a hand like AQ, A10 or weaker Ace or medium pocket pair like pocket eights or sevens.

River fills the "donk" up and with a $58 pot there he puts in his remaining $51. There is nothing truly "donk-ish" that I see in this hand's play.

So we get to hand #2. "Donk" makes a massive overbet of $71 into an $18 (based on post info) pot. On this hand I think everyone else has offered pretty sound advice, don't go broke in an unraised pot. Two pair looks good, but he could easily have backed into the flush, hit a set, or based on what he's witnessed he thinks he can push you out of the hand.

[/ QUOTE ]

I hope you won't take this the wrong way, because deep down in my heart I really do enjoy helping people. But all the stuff you just wrote is really bad.

For starters, calling a raise out of position with J6o is nothing short of horrible. Defending your blinds has no place in no limit poker. (Even in limit poker J6o ain't much of a hand to defend your blind with.)

During the course of the rest of the hand, you have completely misread my hand. You and the donk can't know this yet, but $16 is the only amount that I'll ever bet into a $26 pot on the flop. I will do that with anything from undercards to top set. Betting the full size of the pot in these situations is wasting money -- your opponents will either have a hand to call you with, or they won't. The exact amount that you bet will have little impact on whether they call. And the majority of the time that you do get called, it means that you are behind. So why risk the extra money?

On the turn, I'm not sure where I'm at, so I check behind. If I continue firing at the pot I'm unlikely to continue getting action unless I'm beaten. Also, it's good for meta-game considerations. If I always bet the turn with my strong hands, then I leave the door wide open for people to bluff me out on the river each time I telegraph my hand with a turn check. So these turn checks can either allow me to pick off river bluffs from the dumber opponents who haven't caught on to what I'm doing, or it may prevent people from bluffing me off of some of my weaker holdings. Either way I'm happy, as long as I'm still thinking one level ahead of my opponents and know what they are up to.

However, the donk doesn't know this stuff about me yet, so it's very possible that he did indeed misread me to be very weak. With this in mind, his big bet at the end told me that he really wanted me to call. If he believed I had nothing at all and wished to run a bluff, he would not need to risk his entire stack to do it. When he's sitting there with a monster, he figures I will fold to any size bet if I actually have nothing, but if I actually do have a hand good enough to call any decent size bet, then I probably have enough to call the push.

I had KTo and I was pretty sure that he held no less than trip jacks, and more likely some sort of boat. So I folded.

[thatpfunk]

[ QUOTE ]
If I bet you even money (comparable to a bet with no money in the pot) and you win once and lose once, then you are even, right? So for it to be +EV, you only have to win more than 50% of the time. With $90 in the pot and $70 to call, you will win $90 when you win and lose $70 when you lose so you get
EV = P*90-(1-P)*70 where P is the probability of winning. If you set EV to zero, you get
0 = 90P+70P-70 => P = 70/160 = 44%

[/ QUOTE ]

Ah, thanks /images/graemlins/laugh.gif... It's so simple!

[JaBlue]

This looks like an easy fold given player description and that he has only overbet with the nuts before.

Also it might help your game to stop thinking of players as "donks" and start thinking of them as "bad players that limp with trash and push with the (near) nuts" or whatever for other players. I'm sure you all ready know that, but people on this forum have a habit of saying "horrible player does this how do I respond" when the replier has no clue what you mean by 'horrible.'

[PinkSteel]

He appears to have liked the J/images/graemlins/diamond.gif on the turn, as well as the Q/images/graemlins/diamond.gif on the river, he's already made one massive river overbet hoping to get a call. The "zzzzzzzzzzzzz" gives me the sense that he already knows where this hand is going (a huge guess, obviously). I would fold it; I don't think you win 45% of the time.

[creedofhubris]

[ QUOTE ]


For starters, calling a raise out of position with J6o is nothing short of horrible. Defending your blinds has no place in no limit poker. (Even in limit poker J6o ain't much of a hand to defend your blind with.)

[/ QUOTE ]

Not entirely true. If you're headsup or threehanded you need to play a lot of hands, and come back over the top a lot, against an aggressive, stealing foe.


[ QUOTE ]
During the course of the rest of the hand, you have completely misread my hand. You and the donk can't know this yet, but $16 is the only amount that I'll ever bet into a $26 pot on the flop. I will do that with anything from undercards to top set. Betting the full size of the pot in these situations is wasting money -- your opponents will either have a hand to call you with, or they won't. The exact amount that you bet will have little impact on whether they call. And the majority of the time that you do get called, it means that you are behind. So why risk the extra money?

[/ QUOTE ]

Against true morons, you want to get full value out of your good hands, so you pot pot pot all the way down.

[BobboFitos]

[ QUOTE ]
Not entirely true. If you're headsup or threehanded you need to play a lot of hands, and come back over the top a lot, against an aggressive, stealing foe

[/ QUOTE ]
I play lots of 3handed games. I love 3handed games. And I fold J6o 100%.

...

As for Soah's comment re: flop bet sizes, (has a hand or not) he is partially correct. Depends on flop texture. Some boards you can get away with betting very little.

[jkkkk]

[ QUOTE ]
Well, I think calling this guy a donk is a bit of oversimplification based on only two hands of information.

In the first hand the guy is new to the table and someone raises him $8 while he's in the big blind, I see no problem with him making an attempt to defend his blind. The flop comes and he check-calls the $16 bet into a $26 pot (based on post info). That smells weak to me, so with a flush draw on the board it's possible he decides to make a play at the pot and calls the flop bet, backing into a hand on the next two streets. Turn makes his two pair and we're told again that there's a check-check. The fact that Soah checks the turn leads me to believe that he had no part of the board, so I'm deducing he had a hand like AQ, A10 or weaker Ace or medium pocket pair like pocket eights or sevens.

River fills the "donk" up and with a $58 pot there he puts in his remaining $51. There is nothing truly "donk-ish" that I see in this hand's play.

So we get to hand #2. "Donk" makes a massive overbet of $71 into an $18 (based on post info) pot. On this hand I think everyone else has offered pretty sound advice, don't go broke in an unraised pot. Two pair looks good, but he could easily have backed into the flush, hit a set, or based on what he's witnessed he thinks he can push you out of the hand.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think we have identified the real person in this thread that needs advice /images/graemlins/smile.gif

I don't mean to offend, but defending with j6o??

Calling with bottom pair..

This is not a winning playing style.

[pho75]

[ QUOTE ]
I thought I was inducing a river bluff but this wasn't exactly what I had in mind.

[/ QUOTE ]

Then shouldn't you just close your eyes, grit your teeth, and hand over your money?

Really though, how hard and fast is that maxim in Sklansky's TOP?

[dtbog]

[ QUOTE ]
I think, and after about ten seconds he types "zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz" into the chat box. Does this affect your decision at all?

[/ QUOTE ]

I actually saw the J6o hand, and I saw this one. One thing you left out of OP is that he did this "zzzz" crap before, when he rivered a boat.

-dB

[dtbog]

[ QUOTE ]
I check, he goes all-in for $71. I thought I was inducing a river bluff but this wasn't exactly what I had in mind.

To call or not to call? That is my question.

I think, and after about ten seconds he types "zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz" into the chat box. Does this affect your decision at all?

[/ QUOTE ]

FWIW, when I was watching this hand I put the villain on the backdoor flush -- I don't think many players at this guy's level are "clever" enough to do the same thing twice but with a different hand. Against a skilled, thinking player, I might consider the river-overbet-"zzz" line to be a bluff this time, but against this guy, it's the nuts.

Also, for those of you who doubt soah's description, this guy is a donk. I saw him play. Donk.

-dB

[dtbog]

[ QUOTE ]
The fact that Soah checks the turn leads me to believe that he had no part of the board

[/ QUOTE ]

The check-behind on the turn seems to me like a way to control the size of the pot with top pair, and possibly to pick off a bet from a Jack on the river.

Do you always bet the turn with top pair? I certainly don't.

-dB

[pho75]

I had a thought. (don't say it!)

So you checked to induce a bluff correct? I'm assuming you would call a 1/2 pot bet. What about a pot bet? Probably. What about 2x the pot? At what point did the "I'm going to call his bluff" plan turn into "I think he's got it" override?

And getting even more abstract when considering a bluff vs. non-bluff situation on the end. I've always thought there was a catch-22 thing going on when betting on the end.

The more someone bets on the end the more likely is it that he's bluffing, but the less likely his bet will be called. And the corollary, the less he bets, the less likely he's bluffing, but his bet is more likely to get called.

I know there are a number of other factors that go into this but this seems to be generally correct. For example, if he bet 1/10th. of the pot he would know that you would call so he can't be bluffing. As his bets got higher and higher your decision whether to call or not would get tougher and tougher.

Doesn't it stand to reason that the the biggest bet you can make (all-in) would have the highest bluff probabilty?

This all assumes that everyone invovled is a rational thinking player. HA!

[BigJohn804]

[ QUOTE ]

I hope you won't take this the wrong way, because deep down in my heart I really do enjoy helping people. But all the stuff you just wrote is really bad.

For starters, calling a raise out of position with J6o is nothing short of horrible. Defending your blinds has no place in no limit poker. (Even in limit poker J6o ain't much of a hand to defend your blind with.)

During the course of the rest of the hand, you have completely misread my hand. You and the donk can't know this yet, but $16 is the only amount that I'll ever bet into a $26 pot on the flop. I will do that with anything from undercards to top set. Betting the full size of the pot in these situations is wasting money -- your opponents will either have a hand to call you with, or they won't. The exact amount that you bet will have little impact on whether they call. And the majority of the time that you do get called, it means that you are behind. So why risk the extra money?

On the turn, I'm not sure where I'm at, so I check behind. If I continue firing at the pot I'm unlikely to continue getting action unless I'm beaten. Also, it's good for meta-game considerations. If I always bet the turn with my strong hands, then I leave the door wide open for people to bluff me out on the river each time I telegraph my hand with a turn check. So these turn checks can either allow me to pick off river bluffs from the dumber opponents who haven't caught on to what I'm doing, or it may prevent people from bluffing me off of some of my weaker holdings. Either way I'm happy, as long as I'm still thinking one level ahead of my opponents and know what they are up to.

However, the donk doesn't know this stuff about me yet, so it's very possible that he did indeed misread me to be very weak. With this in mind, his big bet at the end told me that he really wanted me to call. If he believed I had nothing at all and wished to run a bluff, he would not need to risk his entire stack to do it. When he's sitting there with a monster, he figures I will fold to any size bet if I actually have nothing, but if I actually do have a hand good enough to call any decent size bet, then I probably have enough to call the push.

I had KTo and I was pretty sure that he held no less than trip jacks, and more likely some sort of boat. So I folded.

[/ QUOTE ]

I certainly won't take it the wrong way, Soah, I know I still have a lot to learn so far as theory and play go.

But I don't think we're so far off in what we're both getting at. Irregardless of whether or not the guy is a donk, if he were a semi-intelligent player who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar, he was still making a decent catch up play.

I had this exact situation come up in my live NL game last week. I raised from late position with pocket sixes and the BB called me as I had been doing a lot of raising. Flop come K 10 5, with two spades. The pot was $16 and I check-called his $8 bet. Turn was a brick and I check-called his $15 bet and the river was a spade and I pushed him for $50 and he folded his flopped top two pair.

A player could very easily try and set up a play like that and simply got extraordinarily lucky by backing into the full boat.

A pot bet on the flop would have been my move, particulary with the spades out there. Making it $16 dollars gives the guy 3.625-1 odds on the pot if he calls. If he's very loose, that's enough to try and catch that third spade if he's on the draw.

As for it being wasted money, if he truly is a donk, wouldn't it make more sense to be sucking that extra ten bucks out of him if he is the type of guy to call with bottom pair on a king high flop which was raised?

I don't think checking on the turn was the wrong move, was just trying to infer where you were at with your hand. As for his river bet, who knows where to go with that? I agree with your assessment of his push, but if he only bets 1/2 pot there I would find that a bit suspicious as well. I'm not sure what sized bet I could call there on the river, so it seems immaterial the amount, I'm most likely folding to any bet on the river.

[soah]

Unless I'm adding wrong, I'm giving people 2.625:1 to call me on the flop, not 3.625:1 which is not a very good price.

"if he truly is a donk, wouldn't it make more sense to be sucking that extra ten bucks out of him if he is the type of guy to call with bottom pair on a king high flop"

Well, a minute ago you were worried about the odds I was giving with the flop underbet... and while I think 2.625:1 is a reasonable price to charge someone, I can't see myself ever giving someone 6.8:1 to call on the turn. It shows so much weakness that a worse hand may decide to checkraise me and I won't know where I'm at, and if I want to milk more money out of a worse hand I would rather just check the turn and then either call a blocking bet on the river or make a reasonable value bet myself. That way I don't run the risk of getting blown off my hand.

I'll leave you with a passage from Ciaffone:

[ QUOTE ]
My experience is that with ragged flops, a bet of half the pot will win immediately almost as often as a bet of the whole pot. This means a bluff of this size is quite an attractive proposition, because you are getting laid two to one odds. Assuming that you are betting the same amount on your strong hands and don't overwork the play, you should show a nice pofit on your thievery. The astute reader may wish to point out that you are making less money on your good hands. There is no such thing as a free lunch. I hold many more bad hands than good hands. Perhaps those of you who habitually hold big hands may wish to make larger bets in this situation. I can tell you only what works for me.

[/ QUOTE ]

[soah]

[ QUOTE ]
Not entirely true. If you're headsup or threehanded you need to play a lot of hands, and come back over the top a lot, against an aggressive, stealing foe.

[/ QUOTE ]

This was six-handed, and it's not like I had been splashing around in every single hand. You had better have some serious postflop skills in order to show a profit playing J6o out of position against a raise, even if the raise may be a little bit light.


[ QUOTE ]
Against true morons, you want to get full value out of your good hands, so you pot pot pot all the way down.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'll concede that point. But while I was playing the hand I hadn't yet come to appreciate his level of donkness.

[soah]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I think, and after about ten seconds he types "zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz" into the chat box. Does this affect your decision at all?

[/ QUOTE ]

I actually saw the J6o hand, and I saw this one. One thing you left out of OP is that he did this "zzzz" crap before, when he rivered a boat.

-dB

[/ QUOTE ]

If he had done this on a previous hand then apparently I missed it.